Longmont's Butterball property may have buyer

Trial postponed because of pending sale

The seven-parcel Butterball site is under contract with a closing scheduled for August, according to court documents. (Times-Call file graphic)

Butterball's day in court against Longmont was delayed because the company has a contract to sell the turkey plant at 150 Main St. and six other sites associated with it for $4.5 million, according to Boulder County District Court documents.

The contract, listed as evidence in the pre-trial motions, lists the buyer as "150 Main LLC" with an address of 1400 Glenarm Place in Denver. That office building includes the real estate firm of Shames-Makovsky, which is also where 150 Main's registered agent, Brian Bair, works as a broker.

The contract is set to close Aug. 1. A deposit of $100,000 by 150 Main must be returned if the company backs out before April 30. If it does so after April 30, Butterball keeps $50,000 of the "earnest money."

The buyer's plans for the Butterball sites have not yet been disclosed. According to motions filed by Longmont's attorneys, the city and 150 Main are confidentially negotiating a public-private partnership "in which the city is seriously contemplating investing financial resources ... to support 150 Main's subsequent proposed uses for the Butterball properties."

Butterball sued Longmont in February 2013 over the city's decision to make the First and Main neighborhood a "mixed use" zone, which permits commercial and non-commercial uses on the same site. The decision wiped out the area's old industrial zoning — and with it, Butterball contends, wiped out many of the potential customers for the plant.

"The zoning change from mixed industrial to mixed use in January 2013, without advance notice to Butterball, completely derailed Butterball's efforts to sell to an industrial purchaser and has led more than one potential purchaser to walk away," Butterball's attorneys wrote in a March 5 motion. Even with a potential buyer at hand, they added, the contract's closing would depend on whether the city approved of 150 Main's plans.

Butterball closed the Longmont turkey plant in 2011 and put it on the market in the summer of 2012. The zoning changed in January 2013.

Appraisers for Butterball set the properties' value at $7,454,000 before the zoning change and $2.1 million after it.

The suit claims that Longmont violated Butterball's right to due process in actions that included a failure to properly notify the company of the planned zoning change. The city denied any such failure, but did hold a "do-over" of the hearing process last fall, including a second City Council vote on the zoning.

The case had been set to go to trial on April 14, but Longmont asked for a delay. The city's attorneys argued that any damages claimed by Butterball would remain "speculative" until after the Aug. 1 closing date with 150 Main.

"Butterball is likely to receive a windfall at the expense of the city's taxpayers if the trial in this case occurs before the sale is finalized," attorneys Thomas Lyons and Lance Shurtleff wrote for the city.

Judge Andrew Hartman agreed, saying the property's sale was "clearly relevant to Butterball's alleged damages." Since the contract did not require the lawsuit to be over before the sale closed, Hartman said, no one would be harmed by waiting until Butterball had an exact sale price instead of appraisal estimates.

Online court records show that a five-day trial is now set to begin Sept. 22.

Local duo joining overseas exhibition excursionFilippo Swartz went to Italy, where his mother was born and he spent the first year or so of his life, every summer until he had to stick around to be a part of summer football activities for the Longmont High School team. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
Full Story